i) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing information from an information storage medium and an information recording apparatus for recording the information in the information storage medium.
ii) Description of Related Art
An information recording apparatus for recording information in information storage mediums such as DVD, CD and magnetic disk has been heretofore known. In general, such information recording apparatus also serves as an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing the information from the information storage medium. Moreover, the information recording apparatus or the information reproducing apparatus is connected to or incorporated in host systems such as a personal computer and a player CPU as a storage apparatus of the host system, and utilized in a broad field. These information recording apparatus and information reproducing apparatus perform information reproducing and information recording with respect to the information storage medium in accordance with an instruction from the host system.
In general, the information storage medium is subjected to a physical format, and a recording area is divided into physical sectors. A sector head is constituted to be able to be recognized by a pit or a magnetic mark, and one sector can be said to be a unity for bytes by which drives such as the information recording apparatus and information reproducing apparatus can efficiently perform the information reproducing and information recording. In general, one sector is constituted of the number of bytes which is integer times the minimum number of bytes processable by the host system, for example, 512 B (bytes), 1024 B (bytes), 2048 B (bytes), or the like. Moreover, the information recorded in the information storage medium or the information reproduced from the information storage medium is usually transferred by a sector unit between the host system and the information reproducing apparatus.
Additionally, the amount of the information whose reproducing or recording is required by the host system is not limited to the information amount being an integer times a sector capacity, and the reproducing and recording are necessary with respect to th information of the information amount corresponding to an application program. Therefore in a conventional art, when information transfer is performed between the host system and the information reproducing apparatus, the host system obtains the amount of the information to be transferred by setting the amount to be equal to the information amount of the sector unit, and a burden on the host system is large.
Moreover, in order to set the information amount unit during information transfer to be equal to the sector unit, in addition to the information whose reproducing or recording is required by the host system, unnecessary information also needs to be transferred, and waste of a transfer time occurs.
Furthermore, for an information storage medium in which personal security information and the like are stored, it is unsafe from a standpoint of information protection to reproduce and transfer even the security information unnecessary for the host system.
From these situations, the information reproducing apparatus and information recording apparatus in which information transfer is possible by the information amount unit different from the sector unit have been demanded, but such information reproducing apparatus and information recording apparatus have not been realized.
In consideration of the aforementioned situations, an object of the present invention is to provide an information reproducing apparatus and an information recording apparatus in which information transfer is possible by an information amount unit different from a sector unit. By realizing such information reproducing apparatus and information recording apparatus, it is possible to lighten a burden on a host system, avoid a waste of a transfer time, or to raise an information protection level.
To achieve the aforementioned object according to the present invention there is provided an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing information from an information storage medium in which a storage area is divided into physical sectors as minimum units for performing information recording and information reproducing, the apparatus comprising:
an information designating reception section in which non-sector unit information constituted by a non-sector unit of an information amount different from the information amount for one sector is designated as the information to be reproduced from the information storage medium;
a reproducing section for reproducing the information for the integer number of sectors including the non-sector unit information designated by the information designating reception section from the information storage medium; and
an output section for extracting and outputting the non-sector unit information designated by the information designating reception section from the information for the integer number of sectors reproduced by the reproducing section.
Moreover, to achieve the aforementioned object according to the present invention there is provided an information recording apparatus for recording information in an information storage medium in which a storage area is divided into physical sectors as minimum units for performing information recording and information reproducing, the apparatus comprising:
an information reception section in which non-sector unit information constituted by a non-sector unit of an information amount different from the information amount for one sector is received as the information to be recorded in the information storage medium;
a reproducing section for reproducing the information for the integer number of sectors stored in the areas for the integer number of sectors including a recording area in which the non-sector unit information received by the information reception section is recorded on the information storage medium;
an information replacement section for replacing the information reproduced from the recording area among the information for the integer number of sectors reproduced by the reproducing section with the non-sector unit information received by the information reception section; and
a recording section for recording the information for the integer number of sectors which is partially replaced by the information replacement section in the areas for the integer number of sectors in which the information is reproduced by the reproducing section.
Here, when the information amount for one sector is, for example, 512 bytes, as the non-sector unit, for example, 50 bytes, 200 bytes, 600 bytes, and the like are considered, and as the information amount of the non-sector unit information, for example, 150 bytes corresponding to three 50 bytes, 800 bytes corresponding to four 200 bytes, and the like are considered.
According to the information reproducing apparatus of the present invention, the non-sector unit information is designated as reproducing information, and the designated non-sector unit information is outputted. Moreover, according to the information recording apparatus of the present invention, the non-sector unit information is received as recording information, and the received non-sector unit information is recorded in the information storage medium.
Therefore, between the host system for instructing the information reproducing apparatus or the information recording apparatus to reproduce or record the information and the information reproducing apparatus or the information recording apparatus of the present invention, the reproducing information or the recording information required by the host system can be transferred by the information amount unit which is different from the sector unit. Therefore, in the host system, a trouble of setting the amount of the information to be transferred to be equal to the information amount of the sector unit becomes unnecessary, and a burden on the host system is light. Moreover, transfer of unnecessary information is avoided. Furthermore, for the information storage medium, with the information storage medium in which personal security information is stored, an information protection level is raised.
Preferably, in the information recording apparatus of the present invention,
xe2x80x9cthe information reception section receives each of the non-sector unit information and sector unit information constituted by the sector unit of the information amount for one sector as the information to be recorded in the information storage medium, and
the information recording apparatus comprises: a nonvolatile memory for storing the information for the integer number of sectors when the information reception section receives the non-sector unit information and the information for the integer number of sectors including the non-sector unit information is recorded in the information storage medium; and
a volatile memory for storing the sector unit information when the information reception section receives the sector unit information and the sector unit information is recorded in the information storage medium.xe2x80x9d
Here, when the information amount for one sector is, for example, 512 bytes, the amount of the sector unit information is, for example, 2560 bytes corresponding to five 512 bytes.
In order to avoid information disappearance when a write error or an inadvertent power disconnection occurs during information recording, it is preferable to dispose the nonvolatile memory for storing the information for the integer number of sectors recorded in the information storage medium by the recording section. However, since the volatile memory is larger in capacity and higher in speed than the nonvolatile memory, by selectively using the memory in recording the sector unit information and in recording the non-sector unit information, information disappearance is avoided, and a high-speed information recording apparatus can be realized.
Moreover, in a case in which the information recording apparatus of the present invention operates as if it were a write-once information recording apparatus, xe2x80x9cthe information recording apparatus comprises an area designation section for designating an area, as the area for recording the non-sector unit information received by the information reception section on the information storage medium, following an end of the latest information received by the information reception section and recorded on the information storage medium before the non-sector unit information,
the reproducing section reproduces the information stored in the integer number of sectors including the area designated by the area designation section, and
the replacement section replaces the information reproduced from the area designated by the area designation section among the information for the integer number of sectors reproduced by the reproducing section with the non-sector unit information received by the information reception section.xe2x80x9d
The information recording apparatus of the present invention operates as if it were the write-once information recording apparatus, and therefore the write-once information recording apparatus is realized in which a storage capacity of the information storage medium can be utilized without being wasted.